Coping Strategies
by Peachdreamsandperseus
Summary: It became something of a tradition - every year, twice a year on each of their children's birthdays, they would meet in the library once everyone else had retired to bed where they would talk about the days gone by and raise a glass to absent friends. *Spoilers for CS*


_**So, after what happened in the Christmas Special, I felt like this needed to be written - it's honestly not what you think it is (opinion seems to be divided on whether or not this could/should ever be canon). Enjoy :) x**_

* * *

It starts in nineteen-twenty-two.

It's her son's first birthday, a day that should be filled with happiness and joy but is instead it's tainted with a sadness that she knows will never go away - she is a ghost, bound by her grief to float almost silently through this house that has become something of a prison. There are memories everywhere she turns - the library where he held her hand for a moment longer than was perhaps deemed appropriate, their first kiss at the dining table the night he assisted in saving her darling little sister at the count, the bedroom where she dressed for her wedding day and slept at his side for little over a year. There is one, however, who shares her pain - one whom she never thought in a million years she'd end up relying on.

**_-xxx-_**

**_September 1921_**

_She's locked herself in her room - their room - seeing nobody bar her son and Anna and even then she's barely said two words to her ladies maid and dearest friend. Nobody has ever seen her like this before and it's almost as though her very spirit had died along with him. Hours had turned into days, days almost into a week and, knowing that her refusal to eat anything won't be good for either or her or the baby, he brings her a cup of tea and some toast as she sleeps. The room is plunged into a state of constant darkness and she's cocooned beneath the blankets looking both young and vulnerable and older than he's ever seen her at the same time. She stirs as he pulls back the curtain slightly, letting in a few rays of sunlight._

_ "What time is it?" she asks, her voice hoarse from disuse. _

_ "Just after eleven," he replies. _

_ It almost seems like a gargantuan effort for her to sit herself up in bed and she looks at her brother-in-law with bloodshot eyes that still glisten with unshed tears. "Why are you here, Tom?"_

_ "Because I'm worried about you," he replies. "We all are... I brought you something to eat."_

_ "I'm not hungry."_

_ He sighs and moves over to the cot where his nephew is beginning to fuss. "And all you do is sleep yet you still feel exhausted. Every inch of your body aches but nowhere more than your heart. You feel empty, lost, alone and scared... you feel like half of you is missing and while you know you have to be strong you just can't see the point of it all. Well there is a point. There is a reason to carry on and it's this one here." He lifts the baby into his arms and cradles him close to his chest as he turns to look at Mary. "I know exactly how you feel..."_

_ Mary pushes back the covers and climbs out of bed - it makes Tom's heart ache just a little bit more to see that she's wearing a pair of Matthew's pyjamas. "We decided to call him Archie... Archibald... now I'm not sure."_

_ "It's a grand name," replies Tom with a smile, handing the little boy over to his mother. "But you're thinking he should be a Matthew?"_

_ "Archie Matthew Crawley..." she mutters under her breath, silent tears beginning to fall. "My beautiful baby boy."_

_ Tom rests a hand on Mary's shoulder and gives it a reassuring squeeze. "Eat something while I go and find Anna," he says. "Have a bath and then we'll go for a walk. We don't have to talk, but I'll listen if it's what you want."_

_ "Thank you," she says. "You're a good man, Tom Branson... and I'm sorry I ever thought _

_otherwise."_

_She doesn't speak to him about it that afternoon - in fact, she doesn't for almost a year._

**_-xxx-_**

It's late at night and she comes down to the library in search of a book to read. She doubts that she'll get much sleep tonight - there are too many thoughts racing through her mind and Archie seems to be coming down with something. She had quickly learnt that it's a mother's prerogative to worry about everything and, despite Nanny's reassurance, she can't help but go and check on him several time an hour. She sees a familiar figure hunched over the desk, his profile illuminated by the lamplight as he works.

"Tom? Is that you?"

He sets down his pen and smiles as he looks up at her. "You're up late."

"I could say the same to you... I was just going up to bed, actually."

"You'll stay and have a drink with me though, won't you?" he asks. "To absent friends."  
Mary swallows hard and nods. While she's desperate for this day to end, she knows that she'll only end up lying awake for hours on end - just a couple more hours and something to numb her pain might just be what she needs to slip into a dreamless sleep.

"Alright," she says and crosses the room to the decanter of scotch that her father keeps in there only to stop dead in her tracks when she hears her brother-in-law chuckle.

"Don't bother with that... water from the Liffy tastes better. Here, let me." There's a bottle of Irish whisky on the desk beside him - he pours her a glass before topping up his own half empty glass and moving to sit beside her on the sofa.

"You know, I never really cared for Scotch until..." she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as the memories begin to pick at the stitches of her wounded heart.

Tom sighs. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"No," she interrupts. "No, it's fine... I think it's about time I started talking about it. I never really cared for Scotch until our honeymoon. It was just something we did after dinner."

"I know what you mean. It's my fault that Sybil had a taste for the stuff. Nobody ever found out, but she'd come down to see me after everyone else had gone to bed. We'd sit up talking into the early hours of the morning... I never did thank you, by the way."

"For what?"

"For stopping us from getting to Scotland... I'm certain I wouldn't be here now if we'd succeeded."  
"Then I suppose we're even," replies Mary with the faintest hint of a smile. "If it weren't for you, Matthew and I never would have married. Though, rather selfishly, I sometimes find myself wondering whether or not that would have been for the best."

"Don't think like that," says Tom. "You were happy, weren't you?"

"Blissfully," she answers, swallowing her tears. "It was the most wonderful year of my life."

"If you'd never married him, you wouldn't have Archie... you have to cherish the memories of the life you had together just as you cherish that little boy."

There's a moment of silence as Mary lets Tom's words sink in. As she stares into the amber liquid, completely lost in her thoughts, she tucks her hair back behind her ear - when the time came for her to come out of mourning, she had handed Anna a pair of scissors and told her to cut it short. A week after that she'd gone to London and returned with a whole new wardrobe, packing the vibrant colours of her youth away in favour of greys and blacks with the odd hint of purple should the occasion call for it. While she would never forget, she just couldn't bear to carry on as the old Mary... **his** Mary.

"Does it ever go away?" she asks. "The pain and the emptiness?"

Tom shakes his head. "No," he answers truthfully. "Though it does get easier in time... and because of that I'm going to offer you something I don't think you've had many of in your life."

She quirks an eyebrow at him - a hint of the old Mary breaking through the facade. "And what is that, pray tell?"

"A friend."

**_-xxx-_**

It became something of a tradition - every year, twice a year on each of their children's birthdays, they would meet in the library once everyone else had retired to bed where they would talk about the days gone by and raise a glass to absent friends. It became common knowledge among the inhabitants of the house and everybody knew not to disturb them on these particular nights. It was an unlikely friendship of sorts that of Lady Mary Crawley and Mr Tom Branson, but tragedy brings the strangest of people together in the strangest of ways. Naturally, gossip is rife throughout the village and on more than one occasion the rumour that there may be more to their close companionship than meets the eye has done the rounds. Each and every time they had shrugged it off and laughed over the absurdity of it all.

**_-xxx-_**

**_June 1930_**

It's Sybbie's tenth birthday - ten years since his beautiful darling wife had died - and tensions are beginning to mount. The shockwaves that the Wall Street Crash had sent ricocheting around the world are starting to be felt in this tiny village in North Yorkshire and Robert's deteriorating health has left Mary worrying over what the future will mean for her and Archie.

"He's just a boy," she says. "Not even nine and yet... oh, I don't want to think about it. Not now, not tonight."

Tom nods as he tops up their glasses, his hand shaking slightly in a clear sign that they've probably had quite enough as it is. "You're Crawleys," he replies. "Some of the strongest people I've ever known. You'll be fine."

Mary sighs and, in a drunken haze, lets her head fall onto his shoulder. "I'll miss this, you know," she says. "Promise you'll write to me, even if only to let me know how Sybbie is doing."

"I promise," he replies. After years of fighting, the creation of the Irish Free State had brought with it the pardon he'd long desired. His exile had been overturned and he'd made the agonising decision to leave Downton for Dublin once more, deciding that it was about time his daughter saw the place that should have been her home. He'd found a job and somewhere for them to live (his heart couldn't take returning to that tiny little flat where he'd spent some of the most magical months of his life) and had even begun looking for a school to send Sybbie. "Though no doubt she'll want to start writing to you herself soon enough."

"I can't believe how grown up she is," she says. "And so beautiful... she looks exactly like Sybil. You'll have many beaus to chase away in the next few years, I'm certain of it."

Tom chuckles. "She's not allowed to even speak to a boy until she's at least thirty."

"Says the man who fell in love with a seventeen-year-old."

"Touché."

She lifts her head and looks straight into his eyes - she's always thought him a handsome man but, now that she's gotten to know him, she thinks she is beginning to understand why her sister loved him so much. He is a good and kind man with a sharp mind and a wicked sense of humour. He is her dearest friend and she loves him because of it. It is not the kind of love she felt for Matthew, she doubts she can ever love anyone like that ever again and she's almost certain that he feels the same, but instead she looks upon him as a brother - in each other they have found a confidant, a rock and the strength to keep on fighting for the sake of their children. A new decade must bring with it a new dawn and she feels that it is time at last to reawaken some of the old Mary.

The night before Tom and Sybbie leave for Ireland, Downton is playing host to a midsummer ball - such events are a rare occasion these days yet lack none of the grandeur of the past. If there's one thing about this life that Tom still hasn't grown accustomed to then it's white tie. He shrugs uncomfortably in the jacket and, as he cricks his neck (the stiff collar reminding him all too much of his days in service), he catches a glimpse of something that warms his heart. He smiles as he watches his sister-in-law glide effortlessly down the staircase in a gown of scarlet and with a coronet of diamonds in her hair. With one of the most genuine smiles he's seen from her in years, Mary takes Tom's offered hand and gives it a gentle squeeze.

"You and I have been wearing black for far too long."


End file.
